


Krystalline

by sarkywoman



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 05:43:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21192521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarkywoman/pseuds/sarkywoman
Summary: Five ought to know better than to dip a toe into such chaotic waters.AU where Five didn't time-travel but grew up with the rest. Set during his time away at college, when Klaus turns up in the midst of a breakdown.





	Krystalline

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stabbyumbrella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stabbyumbrella/gifts).

> Please note the pairing! I've written some more familial gen for this fandom so I don't want people to think that's an error and read this by mistake if it's not their cup of tea! I always aim to be precise in '&' versus '/' when it comes to labelling the relationships in my fics.

Years Five had kept it to himself. At first it was a curiosity, then an easily-thwarted whim. Then a begrudging attraction. By the time it became an interest it was far too late to stop it, like a stone rolling, gaining momentum. But he still didn’t need to talk about it. Years of keeping his head down, working, then holding his head high, isolated. Not physically but mentally and emotionally he was miles apart from the rest of the Academy and their teenage dramas. The occasional illicit drink with Klaus or rant with Vanya was the closest he got to connecting with anyone. When he gained permission to leave for higher education among normal people, few people bothered to watch him leave. Vanya gave him a hug. Their faux-mother helped him pack. 

Klaus had given him a kiss on the cheek before floating off. Literally. Five had spent the hours of his ensuing journey putting his fingers gently to the place on his cheek where Klaus’ lips had touched, wondering how he had known. If he had, in fact, known. Ultimately he had come to the conclusion that he didn’t, that it had been a drug-induced whim of Klaus’ that meant nothing to either of them. And he smothered the disappointment at such a rational thought. He didn’t need to see Klaus again. 

A year later and he opens the door to his college dorm only to find Klaus’ lips on his. Five tastes tears and strokes them away from Klaus’ pale cheeks. He tries to ask questions but Klaus won’t answer. Not with words. He looks to Five as if pleading. 

He tastes of alcohol. No doubt drank through the whole journey. How did he afford it? Why did he come so far? Five keeps kissing him. There’s no question now that Klaus knows. Klaus knew. How long? Had this been on the table the whole time? These greedy, groping hands and desperate doe eyes? Five’s rational mind tries to say that this is on the table for anyone – Klaus isn’t known for chastity – but he’s travelled too far for this to mean nothing. 

“I meant to give you what you wanted,” Klaus murmurs, the words muffled by their lips as they kiss and kiss and kiss. “Time got away from me. Always does. But then I found some. Time, I mean. I realised… I realised I hadn’t run out of it completely. And I still want to give you what you want. Please, Five. Please? Everything’s so fucked up. This was the only right thing I could think of.”

Five isn’t that much of an asshole. He’d never admit it, but it’s true. He strokes a hand through Klaus’ curls and kisses him some more, trying to assess Klaus’ enthusiasm. This can’t just be for him. It has to be for both of them. He’s unsure until on the couch, Klaus settles into his lap with a moan. Five knows that what they say about him is the opposite of what they say about Klaus, but he does know how things go from here. He’s thought about it more than he would like. 

They fuck. Maybe they shouldn’t. Five can’t muster up regret. Not when he’s laying there panting for breath, Klaus curling over him, their skin slick with sweat and come. Klaus feeling almost fragile when Five puts an arm around him. Still no answers. And the desire for answers has faded in the wake of sexual satiation and exhaustion. 

In the morning Klaus is dressed, showered and high. Five copies him in two of them, then takes him out for breakfast, where he is informed over pancakes that Ben is dead. They drink six cups of coffee between them and Klaus does a line off the windowsill, then they go back to Five’s place. They repeat the night before. It’s less frantic this time. 

This time it’s light enough to look at the new scars, cuts and bruises and tattoos. Five doesn’t look much different, he knows. A little more toned from his gym pass, maybe. But Klaus… it’s like every day is marked on him. If the Universe doesn’t etch an event into his skin he goes out of his way to mark it himself. Pale as paper with so many notes made. Five traces his fingertips over every one, asking occasional questions.

Strange to think he had always rather imagined it like this. With Klaus off his head, with this sensual, nonsensical context. Irrational. Klaus has always been pure irrationality. Five ought to know better than to dip a toe into such chaotic waters.

But he would be lying if he said he didn’t want to be swept away. Like those evenings of stealing drinks from the old man’s bar, but multiplied by the hundreds. The feeling of sailing out over a sea of possibility and pleasure and hoping he retained enough of his mind to get back. And trusting that if he didn’t, the sea would be kind.

The next day Klaus is gone. A call comes through from Vanya, that Ben is dead and Klaus is missing. Five doesn’t tell her anything. They weren’t exactly rushing to tell him anything. Despite Five’s lack of social connections, it doesn’t take long to find out where his errant lover has gone. Klaus draws attention, enough that other occupants of the building took notice. Five having a guest is apparently something to remember as well, especially when they made noise until four in the morning. He doesn’t blush when his neighbour mentions it, just thanks them for telling him which bar they had seen Klaus at. 

Five finds him slumped at the bar with a few empty glasses. “Drink with me?” Klaus asks, swaying on the stool but smiling so sweetly up at him. Five responds that he doesn’t drink anymore and Klaus laughs until he falls off the stool. Calls him a dirty liar. Isn’t wrong. Five agrees to one drink before they go home. Already calling it home for them both. Doesn’t stop at one drink. Dolores, his mentor, will not be pleased that he’s back off the wagon. But it’s worth it. 

They talk. Well, they drunkenly ramble. Five gets all of his answers. Nearly twenty years worth of questions worked through in an alcoholic haze. He’ll forget it all, of course, remembering only the sight of Klaus wearing a cocktail umbrella over his ear and dancing for him. He won’t even remember what they did to get kicked out. 

He does – and will forever – remember kissing him up against a wall on the way home. Such a warm night but Klaus’ hands cool as they slide up under his shirt and urge him on. Five’s hands sliding up under the skirt that Klaus had thought appropriate to wear to the bar. Kissing and touching and coming together under the night sky as if the world belongs to them alone. As if nothing matters but them. This. Stumbling home on unsteady legs in clothes stained with come and drink.

Waking up utterly naked with Klaus sprawled next to him equally naked, Five feels like a whole different person. He feels like his normal self is on holiday. He doesn’t want him to come back. He doesn’t want to be rational again at the expense of this. Fuck his degree and his research and the time-travel equations that he’s so nearly perfected, the teleportation tricks that might revolutionise every scientific field… he wants this. This bed. Klaus. This intimacy that feels more natural than anything he’s ever known. 

Rolling over, he wakes Klaus with kisses and touches. They’re both hungover and delicate. It’s slow. Careful. Klaus gives him a lazy and decadent blowjob. They don’t talk or think about anything. It’s bliss. Klaus lights up a joint afterwards and Five even shares it. This is who he is now. This is what he does. He puts the world on hold and steps outside of it where Klaus lives.

That evening the neighbour tries to complain about the noise again, banging on the door. Klaus answers it naked with half a bottle of vodka and scares him off. Five doesn’t appreciate the reminder that it’s a weeknight. The real world beckons and he can’t really avoid it forever.

He calls in sick the next day. He’s tutoring some classes that will need a substitute, but that’s their problem. For now. It’ll be his soon. The urge to care about that is building. But he goes back to bed, gets his face between Klaus’ thighs and does something for him that he’s never done for anyone. Savours the sound of his name being screamed to the ceiling. Klaus knows exactly who he’s with. This means something. But it can’t mean everything. As much as they both want it to. Five has to get back inside to the real world. He’s determined to bring Klaus with him.

“You should stay with me,” he says, Klaus laying peacefully in his arms like a long-term lover. Technically his dorm is single occupancy. The neighbour could tell the accommodation office. Probably will, if they keep loudly fucking until the morning. But Five can make it work. He’s Number Five, he can make anything work. He’s just… never tried to solve the puzzle that is Klaus before. He wants to. Needs to. The idea of losing this is unacceptable.

“I didn’t have any other plans,” Klaus says sleepily. “You’re the plan man. I just… am.” He snuggles closer, if such a thing were possible. “That’s why I came and found you. Ha, or found you and came, more like. Who knew you could be so indulgent?” He plants a kiss to Five’s jaw. “So yeah, I’ll probably stay a little longer. It’s been nice. I’ve missed you. You’ve always been a nice break from… my brain.” Five blinks at the thought that he might be the same sort of reprieve for Klaus that Klaus is for him.

“Well, I meant permanently.” Five smooths his hand down Klaus’ back, feeling a tension that hasn’t been there before. “There’s a fair amount of work around here that doesn’t need any qualifications. I could speak to the old man about increasing my allowance. Move to an apartment off-campus.” And somehow try to exist in the real world and Klaus’ simultaneously. Get Klaus a little bit grounded somehow.

“Hmm, I don’t know about that.” Klaus kisses him again, then goes to sleep. Five wraps his arms around him tighter, but when he wakes he’s holding a pillow instead. Klaus isn’t at the kitchen table sprinkling powdered pills over cereal, isn’t in the shower rinsing the residue of their love-making away. Five spends the day wandering, but he isn’t anywhere. He has to call Vanya that night. She tells him not to worry, that Klaus has come home. That Ben’s funeral will be soon if he can attend. Five decides that he can’t. Feels like a shithead about it.

It’s years before the next family funeral. Daddy dearest finally done. Five heads back to the Academy for this one, far more prepared. It’s more of a celebration than a mourning, isn’t it? Their father has always been a monster. But none of that is on his mind when he walks into the old house. Their mother greets him and takes his bags. Vanya hugs him, says she’s glad he decided to be there. Then in a whirlwind of black and glitter, Klaus rushes to him and kisses him on the cheek. Five can’t pretend that he doesn’t know all that he does now. He catches Klaus’ jaw with a firm hand and kisses him back hard. 

Looks him in the eyes after. “I’m staying for a little while, then you’re coming home.”

Klaus’ smile is unbelievably shy. “Okay. I might stay this time, if that’s okay.”

“You know it is.”

“Oh yeah. I always knew.” He drags Five upstairs, ready to scandalise the entire house.


End file.
